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From: Bobbie Giordano
Date: Tue, 5 Mar 1996 04:23:17 -0500 (EST)
Subject: Re: T-birds

As I earlier implied I would, here's what went down at Kim Wilson's visit
to our fair town of Tallahowsitgoin tonight. First I must get this out
of the way...I'm ticked at myself for only arriving in time for the Fab
T-birds show. It turns out the opening group, Dorothy and the Twisters,
landed their SECOND gig to open for Kim et al, and Dorothy is not really
her name, but Laura Bell, my sister. She said the whole thing happened
so fast she didn't find time to let me know. They also have a harmonica
player/guitarist, too. Oh, well...another time, I'm sure. It was fun to
get her to sign the same ticket Kim Wilson signed, though.

As for the main event, it was about a 2 hour show, with some old standbys
like Wrap It Up and Tuff Enough, a standard or two like I'm A Man, and
stuff from the new recording, Roll of the Dice. Before I go on, let it
be known that I've not been a great fan, but write-ups I've seen
have leaned toward higher appreciation since relatively recent personnel
changes, like Kid Ramos for Vaughan on guitar. And if for nothing else,
Ramos makes the listen worthwhile...he takes diddling to a high art. It
was definitely the Kim and Kid Show! Although, Ramos did have a few gear
disruptions, one in particular, though, led to a wonderful excursion into
the raggedy boogie world of keyboardist Greg Taylor, who finished out the
night with his own fan gallery. I couldn't quite catch the names of the
bass player and drummer, but I thought I heard something like James and
Lastinos respectively. Sorry about that.

Kim was definitely on his game tonight, and the sweat-flinging, chug-a-rama
solo he takes on an empty stage that I'm sure some here have witnessed was
indeed awesome. Yet, it still nags me that this group is rutted, and even
though moments of brilliance add sparks here and there, the evening moves
along almost predictably. The best things happen when things go wrong, and
the obviously professional stature of the artists takes over to deal in a
creative way with the adversities. But then, some of the best performances
I've ever seen happened that way. I do want to say that I think Wilson is
evolving a little right now, and his skills are getting more elaborate.
However, I don't believe I saw him change harp keys all night, but I may
have missed it.

As for gear, I'll try to do the best I can, especially for one H-L friend
who asked. Kim was very friendly and generous with his time after the
encore, signing autographs and chatting. I asked him if he'd heard of
Harp-L, and he said "What?" So I explained a bit of what we do and that
folks here wondered about some of his equipment. He then was very forth-
coming with answers to what I asked. His mic is a JT-30 [matte black with
some kind of small button or protrusion sticking straight out the back,
which I didn't get an explanation for, and which I never saw him touch or
adjust all night anyway.] He said the cartridge is also a standard JT-30
element. His amp this night was a Sovtek [looked like a MIG 50] sitting
on top of a Fender Twin. He seemed a bit frustrated in explaining that
he "just can't use" the Twin, saying it's just "too hot", and said Yeah
when I asked "even in a place like this?" [a fairly large facility...has
a central dance floor, flanked by two bars, multilevel seating with tables
and two more bars upstairs.] The lower speaker cabinet had double mics,
the left looked like a Shure SM-57 and the right like maybe a beyerdynamic
TG-X 50, a sort of flat-headed rectangular mic. His vocal mic looked very
much like a Shure SM-58 to me. I noted the speaker cabinet didn't seem
to match the Fender Twin on top, and he indicated, yeah, he had changed
out the speakers at some time, but was not sure when or what. The cabinet
was slightly smaller than the top unit...maybe reflecting one of his
attempts to tone down the Twin...who knows. Oh, yeah, it appeared that
he plays Marine Bands exclusively. Maybe someone here knows for sure.

Yeow, it's late...G'night all!

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